Do we want to call Joseph Andrew Stack III a terrorist or just a really angry upper-middle-class white tax protester with an airplane?

Stack purposely crashed his Piper Cherokee PA-28 into a federal building in Austin, Texas on February 18, 2010.  It is now clear that Stack selected this building as a target because it housed approximately 190 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees.

Stack left a detailed six-page suicide letter explaining why he decided to take his own life and to take the lives of others through his suicide attack using an airplane loaded with extra fuel. What is interesting about Stack's suicide letter is that much of the language he chose to use is similar to the rhetoric found in statements made by spokesmen for Al-Qaeda that call for or justify terrorist acts against civilians.

Stack states in his letter, "We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place [the United States] and we should be ready to lay down our lives for the noble principals by its founding fathers." Similarly, an operative affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, claiming that the bombing of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad in 2008 was retaliation for the printing of the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, declared that the attack was carried out because "[i]f there is no check on your freedom of words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions."

Another statement from Stack's letter: "Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough)."  He goes further and says, "But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I ensure nothing will change." Al-Qaeda representatives often argue that suicide attacks and killing innocents are necessary as a form of retaliation for real and perceived injustices in order to bring about necessary change.  

Several hours after Stack's suicide attack, and after the letter Stack wrote was authenticated, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement to the media stating, "At this time, we have no reason to believe there is a nexus to terrorist activity. We continue to gather more information, and are aware there is additional information about the pilot's history." Local law enforcement officials on the scene in Austin did not draw a connection between the suicide attack and terrorism. Art Acevedo, Chief of the Austin Police Department, said, "I consider this a criminal act by a lone individual."  

For the purpose of clarity, an act of domestic terrorism is defined by the Patriot Act as something "intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."    

The headlines in major media outlets have avoided using the word "terrorism" to describe Stack's suicide attack: the Los Angeles Times: "Man who crashed plane into Austin IRS building part of decades-long line of tax protesters;" the Christian Science Monitor: "Joe Stack IRS attack and the growth of the tax resistance movement;" and CBS News/Associated Press: "Austin Pilot Left Anti-IRS Suicide Note."

Several bloggers and online columnists are now exploring why law enforcement agencies and the legacy media have been hesitant to connect the word "terrorism" to the atrocious act of violence committed by Stack (see Brian Selter's piece on the New York Times blog , Glenn Greenwald's piece for Salon and Evan Perez's piece on the Wall Street Journal blog ). However, the initial and continuing reaction prevaling in most major media outlets in the United States was and is to identify Stack as disgruntled, depressed, a pilot, a tax protestor, a man acting alone, a criminal, one bad apple--but certainly not a terrorist.  

Writers in the blogosphere as well as some online media venues, on the other hand, do seem to be pushing the issue of Stack as a terrorist (see, for example, Marcia Alesan Dawkin's piece for TruthDig). Bucky Turco of Animal New York puts it well: "So to recap. Joseph Stack carried out a premeditated, politically motivated suicidal attack, using an airplane, against both the U.S. government and its civilians, to scare them and protest specific policies of said government, that he outlined in a manifesto posted online and ultimately intended to destroy the entire building. Am I missing something here?"

Law enforcement and the major media outlets in the United States need to be consistent in their definition of terrorism and to use the term objectively. Selective use of the term makes it clear that objectivity is simply a conceit and that certain racial, ethnic and religious groups are incapable of committing acts of terrorism (i.e. upper-middle-class white men who own airplanes and nurture a grievance against their own government).

Ali H. Mir is currently the Director of Muslim Student Life at the University of Southern California Office of Religious Life and a 2010 NewGround Fellow. Ali is a graduate of the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development. As a private environmental consultant, Ali has over seven years of  experience within the policy framework of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).